Title of artwork: CONSTRUCTION SITE 2016
Medium: Mixed Media
Date: 14 Jul – 18 Sep 2016
Location: Esplanade Concourse

An artwork examining our living space, CONSTRUCTION SITE 2016 was installed in the Concourse in the third quarter of 2016. The piece was a joint commission authored by Singapore husband-and-wife multimedia artists Milenko and Delia Prvacki. While Delia works predominantly with ceramics, and Milenko is known for large-scale canvases, the two practitioners fused their respective methodologies and aesthetic concerns to give birth to the seamlessly unified effort that was CONSTRUCTION SITE 2016. The latter engaged the public on several levels: formally, with its material elements culled from Singapore’s construction sites; and conceptually, as the installation grappled with the idea of always-evolving materials and ideas, as embodied by the transitional state of building detritus.

Though ostensibly static, the piece, climbing the Concourse steps, was also discreetly theatrical and shifting. It achieved this effect by means of an undulating mirror surface suspended from the Concourse ceiling that reflected and amplified the objects collected on the stairs beneath. However, not only did the looking glass reflect elements below, it also mirrored Esplanade visitors milling around the piece. This incorporation of mobile figures incessantly altered CONSTRUCTION SITE 2016’s appearance and layout as seen in the mirror, and so gave the installation a dynamic sense of progression. With the integration of the simple but well-positioned mirror helming their piece, the Prvacki duo was able to tangibly convey the movement and pluralism of the city, these human features among the most valuable of any urban landscape.